Rhodes had won the primary election and would be running unopposed in November, much to his surprise considering the events just before the voting. Ivy, however, had not won, a fact that both she and Rhodes attributed to male prejudice against women justices, something that the county just wasn’t ready for yet.
Ivy had a good job in an insurance office and didn’t take her defeat too badly, but she was disappointed. She made it clear that she would try again.
On his side, Rhodes was just grateful that they had met. Since his wife had died, he had not developed an interest in any woman. Not that a few hadn’t tried. Ivy had changed all that, however. He was definitely interested in her. He was sure she was interested in him, too, but he wasn’t being pushy about it. He’d grown up before the sexual revolution and had no interest in participating in it at this late date. Or at least that’s what he kept telling himself. Dancing with Ivy was beginning to change his mind.
Then “Ain’t That a Shame” dropped onto the turntable, and the dancing came to a halt. “No way,” Rhodes laughed. “No way. That fast dancing is too much like work.”
They put a few more of Rhodes’s records on the spindle and then sat on the couch. “So what’s new in the law and order business?” Ivy asked.
Rhodes laughed. He had become quite comfortable with Ivy and often discussed the cases he was working on with her. Most things were like Mrs. Thurman’s light bulbs, so she was hardly expecting to be told about boxes of arms and legs.
“But that’s terrible,” she said after Rhodes had finished the story. “And no one will bury them?”
“Not Clyde Ballinger, anyway,” Rhodes said. “I think he’s afraid of a lawsuit.”
“But surely they ought to be disposed of decently!”
“I agree,” Rhodes said. “But now they’re evidence, I think.”
“You think!”
“Well, we’re not sure a crime has been committed. I mean, if all those limbs are legitimate amputations, then there may not be anything wrong with dumping them. I’m going to try to get in touch with the state Health Department, but there’s not a hope of doing that until Monday.”
“Of course there’s something wrong with dumping them!” Ivy said. There was a spot of color high on each of her cheekbones, now. “It’s. . it’s indecent.”
Rhodes didn’t have anything to say to that for a minute. In the background the record changer clicked and dropped another disc. Ricky Nelson started singing “Hello, Mary Lou.”
“I admit it’s indecent,” Rhodes finally said. “But indecent and illegal aren’t always the same things. Still, I would like to know who put those boxes there, and why.”
Ivy wasn’t satisfied with that, he could tell, but she dropped the subject. He took her home shortly after eleven o’clock. By then, Bert Ramsey had been dead for nearly an hour.
The body was found by Bert’s mother, who stopped by his house on her way to church. She called the jail, and Hack Jensen called Rhodes, who arrived on the scene twenty minutes after the call.
Bert Ramsey had lived in Eller’s Prairie, a place that was loosely defined as a “community.” That meant, in Blacklin County, that there were six or seven houses along the three or four dirt roads that intersected where the Eller’s Prairie Baptist Church stood. None of the houses was nearer than a half mile to another. No one named Eller had lived in any of them within living memory, and the nearest prairie was a couple of hundred miles away. Not that anyone in Blacklin County was bothered by the discrepancy.
The house where Bert had lived stood back from the road about fifty yards and was shaded by three large oaks. The blue S-10 pickup was parked in a shed a few yards from the house. Beside it was a space probably occupied most of the time by the tractor Rhodes had seen the day before. The yard around the house was neatly mowed and very green, one of the benefits of having well water and not having to pay a city water bill.
Rhodes parked behind a thirty-year-old Ford Tudor with a light blue body and a navy top. There were large areas of rust on the trunk lid. Standing by the front door of the house was Mrs. Ramsey.
Mrs. Ramsey was a considerable woman. Rhodes guessed her weight at around 275 pounds, and he glanced involuntarily at the Ford to see if its springs sagged toward the driver’s side. He thought it did, but that might have been his imagination.
Mrs. Ramsey was swathed in a navy blue dress, and she looked to Rhodes a little like Marjorie Main might have looked if she’d let herself go. She carried a worn leather purse in one hand and an even more thoroughly worn Bible in the other. It was still an hour before noon, so the heat hadn’t reached its full power as yet, but Mrs. Ramsey’s dress showed dark, circular stains under each armpit. When Rhodes reached her, he could see that she’d been crying. Her red eyes didn’t help her appearance much.
“Buster Cullens done it,” she said wearily when Rhodes reached her. “Ain’t no doubt but that Buster done it.”
“How’s that, Mrs. Ramsey?” Rhodes said.
“Buster Cullens done it,” she said again. “Ever since Wyneva took up with Buster, she’s been after him to do it.
“Wyneva?” Rhodes asked.
“Wyneva Greer. She and Bert lived in sin here for six months. Then she left and took up with Buster Cullens. He’s the one who done it.”
It couldn’t be put off any longer. “Did what?” Rhodes asked.
Mrs. Ramsey pushed open the screen door. Bert, or what was left of him, lay just inside it. His head was easily identifiable, but there wasn’t much of his chest that hadn’t been blasted into a red mass of blood and mangled flesh. Mrs. Ramsey let the door swing shut. For the first time, Rhodes noticed the flies that had clustered on the screen. Some of them had gotten inside.
Neither Rhodes nor Mrs. Ramsey said anything for a moment. The Eller’s Prairie Baptist Church was about half a mile down the road. It had no air conditioning, and through its open windows came the strains of the opening hymn. Rhodes recognized it: “Amazing Grace.” He didn’t look at Mrs. Ramsey. “How did you call the jail?” he asked.
Mrs. Ramsey gestured vaguely in the direction of the rear of the house. “I went in the back door,” she said.
“Did you call anyone else?”
“No,” she said. “Just the jail.”
“Let’s go back in there,” Rhodes said. “I have to make some calls, and we can call one of your friends.”
“All of my friends will be in church,” she said.
“Well, you can sit down while I call,” Rhodes told her. He started around to the back, and Mrs. Ramsey followed slowly.
Inside the house, Rhodes walked through the kitchen to the living room. There was a huge Sony television set against one wall, with a Super Beta video recorder sitting in a cabinet beside it, along with a compact disc player. There were two La-Z-Boy chairs and a large, comfortable-looking couch, all sitting on a very thick, brown carpet. There was no telephone.
Mrs. Ramsey sank down in one of the chairs and immediately cranked up the footrest. “Lets me get the weight off me feet,” she explained in a dead voice. “The phone’s in the bedroom.” She pointed to a door on Rhodes’s left.
Rhodes entered the bedroom, which was dominated by a king-size waterbed. There was another television set and another VCR in that room. A red push-button phone sat on the night table beside the bed. Rhodes walked across the plush carpet, wishing he’d remembered to dust off his shoes before coming in the house.
First he called the justice of the peace, then the ambulance. Then he called Hack Jensen. “Get hold of Ruth Grady,” he said. “Tell her I want her to footprint and fingerprint every arm and leg in those three boxes. We’ve got to make sure we can account for all of them one way or another.”
Hack said he’d get right on it, and Rhodes went to look at the body of Bert Ramsey. He’d seen shotgun wounds before, and he already knew just about what he’d find. Whoever had shot Bert had been very close to him, so close that the pattern of shot hadn’t had time to spread out before it hit him in the chest. He couldn’t locate any stray pellets, so he figured that the shot had come from only a couple of feet away. Bert must have gone to the door and been shot almost as soon as he opened it, unless he had known whoever was there. Then he might have stood there for a while, talking.